Throughout the play Angels in America, one of the main characters that makes a big change in the duration of the show is Harper Pitt, wife of Joe Pitt.
In the beginning, Harper is introduced to the audience as basically an insane woman with a drug problem. This problem however stems from the fact that she is not getting what she wants (which is what she desires during most of the play). Throughout the show, she desperately wanted attention and love from her husband and because she was not receiving it, she had to turn to something else—the drugs. These drugs (Valium) caused her to achieve a fantasy where she could do what she wanted. In her hallucinations she was able to go to Antarctica and see an Eskimo—but would all of these situations have been different had Joe not been so distant and gave her the love and attention she deserved all along?
Joe’s distance and the fact that he was a homosexual was one of the main things that stood in Harpers way of getting what she wanted. Joe was always coming home late and then making excuses as to where he was, so Harper would end up getting upset. She did start to have a feeling that something wasn’t right, so by asking Joe flat out if he was gay, she was starting to open herself up in order to find out answers to see if her thoughts about the matter were indeed correct, which showed the audience a slight change starting to take place in Harper’s demeanor, but not enough to be something very significant. With Joe’s leaving all the time and then making his excuses, which left Harper upset, a large gap was put into the middle of their relationship as a married couple which made it very hard for her to get the attention she wanted from him. Another obstacle that stood in Harper’s way of getting what she wanted was the fact that she didn’t like or want change. This made it hard for the two to agree—Joe wanted to go to Washington and Harper didn’t—she wanted to stay where they were because she “needed to finish painting her room.” This just caused more distance and separation between them—they both wanted different things yet deep down Harper still wanted Joe’s love.
Harper makes a very dramatic change from the beginning to the end of the play. In the beginning, she is very closed up and dwells in her own little world of fantasy and hallucination—she doesn’t want to change and wants everything to stay exactly the same. In the end, however, she comes out of her shell and exposes herself. This is seen in the scene towards the end after her and Joe have just made love. She comes out on stage and tries to talk to Joe—she tries to get his attention because he is trying to run out again—and she rips her sheet off of her body and is completely nude—she asks, “What do you see?” In this situation, Harper is expressing her feelings of needing to be loved and wanted as a woman and exposing her vulnerability. She is finally opening up, not only to Joe, but also to the audience. She was trying to show that she was not just an insane woman with a drug problem, but also a woman who has desires and needs and emotions as well. It is at this point that the audience can be amazed with the change that has taken over the person Harper is.
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